Editors ́ Picks

Oxfam faces loss of funding after abuse claims

EDITOR:

Gurmeet Singh, Berlin

Oxfam was left in a very difficult position after claims emerged of members of its aid staff paying prostitutes in Haiti for sex in 2011. Furthermore, the claims stated that some of the sex workers could have been underaged.

Oxfam, funded with British government money, as well as donations from other sources, may lose more of its state budget if the claims are proved to be true. The government is meeting today, February 12, to decide the fate of the charity’s funding future.

Amid this anger, Caroline Thomson, the chair of its trustees pledged to widen a review of its practices to include the Haiti allegations and admitted “anger and shame that behaviour like that … happened in our organisation.”

Thomason laid out a plan that the charity would take to avoid similar scandals in the future. The international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt said that the charity would receive no more money unless it demonstrated more concerted moral leadership.

At a time when charity, aid and development projects are already under fire due to increased xenophobic tendencies, as well as a more nationalist approach to budgeting, this is a disaster for the charity.

Of course, aid, charity and development funds are not sole goods – they are exceptionally problematic, and a part of the fraught relations between dominant and developing nations. However, that doesn’t mean that they do not do good – and this scandal should be investigated, reviewed and the entire system cleaned out. However, the charity, in my opinion should not lose its funding.

Image: Oxfam Director Roland van Hauwermeiren admitted using prostitutes in the wake of the Haitoan earthquake

11.Feb

February 11th, 2018

Asma Jahangir, the voice of the marginalised in Pakistan, is no longer with us

EDITOR:

Shadi Khan Saif, Kabul

Her name was very much synonymous with human rights in Pakistan. Asma Jahangir’s sudden death on Sunday February 11 has suddenly deprived the marginalised of their strong, united voice. From religious and ethnic minorities, labourers, refugees and many more members of different disregarded communities in the increasingly unjust Pakistani society, Asma's presence represented the many.

Be it the Balochs in the country’s largest mineral-rich province who still remain the poorest, the Pashtoons of the tribal belt, Khyber Pakthunkhwa province and Karachi who face deadly 'terrorist' stereotyping, or be it the feminists speaking up, all of them used to seek refuge behind the grandeur and courageous Asma.

Defiant even in the wake of brutal military regime in the 1980s, and even after that when the military in Pakistan evolved into a more savagely networked enterprise, penetrating into democratic as well as commercial and sociopolitical spheres, Asma never hesitated exposing the darker forces behind injustice.

Asma was waging her struggle for human rights and justice in a country that only became independent from the British colonial rule in 1947, and later colonised once again by its own military in a way that kept dynamic voices like hers under threat.

Even days before her death, Asma was sitting in a protest camp of the Pashtoon Long March by the ethnic Pashtoons against racial profiling, extra-judicial killings and abduction of the community members in Pakistan. Her courage to raise a voice in a patriarchal society and her resoluteness in the face of oppression has been a ray of hope for many.

Besides the numerous international awards in appreciation of her service to humanity, Asma has been hailed by people like the Noble Laureate Malala Yosufzai, and other respected figures, as a savior of democracy and human rights, one of the greats of the human rights movement, the bravest and the most resilient fighter for human rights who had the courage to face the wrath of the dictators and the fury of the fundamentalists.

There is no better way to pay tribute to and celebrate the couragious life of Asma than to continue fighting her mission.

09.Feb

February 09th, 2018

#PlasticsStrategy, can we change our plastic habits by 2030?

EDITOR:

Shira Jeczmien, London

Just a few weeks into 2018, the European Commission revealed its #PlasticStrategy plan and how it aims drastically reduce plastic use over the next decade. "If we don't change the way we produce and use plastics, there will be more plastics than fish in our oceans by 2050. We must stop plastics getting into our water, our food, and even our bodies.” Says Frans Timmermans, first vice-President of the European Commission, also responsible for sustainable development.

In many regards, the rise in global awareness of our time’s incessant over-production and consumption of plastic is a monumental step forward, with countries slowly banning the use of plastic carrier bags – or abolishing free bags – there is no denying a sense of urgency has taken some root. The Last Straw for example is a campaign run by the daily newspaper The Evening Standard, launched just prior the European Commission’s plastic strategy announcement and set out to eradicate plastic straws from the streets of London.

We now know that plastic waste has reached the far ends of our planet; from the six mass accumulated plastic gyres floating in our oceans, to microplastic debris inside almost every living being. Europeans generate 25 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, with less than 30% of that mass collected for recycling. “Across the world, plastics make up 85% of beach litter. And plastics are even reaching citizens' lungs and dinner tables, with microplastics in air, water and food having an unknown impact on their health. Building on the Commission's past work, the new EU-wide strategy on plastics will tackle the issue head on.” Writes the European Commission on the campaign’s press release.

The strategy wants all plastic produced by 2030 to be 100% recyclable, urging investment in businesses set out to innovate how we understand and ‘do’ recycling. “We need to invest in innovative new technologies that keep our citizens and our environment safe whilst keeping our industry competitive." Timmermans continues. With the hope to spur young business who are finding solutions beyond plastic, this newly released strategy is indeed a hope for change, but a gentle one at that.

The European Commission’s press release reveals the stagnation of authority that the body has; between a text that is otherwise packed with ‘goodwill’ and an undeniable vision for change, undertones of an industry too powerful to shift reveal themselves. If plastic really is to be eliminated from our planet within the next two, or even three decades, each country, city and borough needs to take on powerful initiatives to abolish the habit of plastic and crack the cycle of its production from within. And with that, #PlasticStrategy is simply a nudge in the right direction.

07.Feb

February 07th, 2018

Roma communities still marginalised across Europe

EDITOR:

Maria João Morais, Madrid

Last week, the Slovakian Government announced its intentions to implement a specific law against "Roma crime". Under the premise of fighting criminal activity, the legal reform aims to create a database on the ethnic origin of offenders. Announced by Slovakian minister Robert Kaliňák, the new bill also increases police powers in the central European country.

The move has been condemned by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), who announced they would take the Interior Ministry to court over discriminatory policing relating to Roma people. The organisation accused the ministry of “institutional racism” and warned that the new legislation could be “misused to persecute already marginalised communities.”

However, it is not the first time that Slovakia has been in the news for its ill-treatment of Roma communities. In the summer of 2013, a 3 metre wall was built in the outskirts of the city Kosice separating Romani and Slovakian families, an action deemed illegal by the European Union. Furthermore, last year, ethnic segregation in the country’s schools was exposed by Amnesty International.

While heavily reported, Slovakia is far from being the only European country failing to integrate its Roma population. The continent is estimated to have 10 to 12 million Roma people, of which more than 70% live in poverty and face severe employment difficulties. Across Europe, this community is still a target for discriminatory practices on the basis of ethnicity. Some of these originate from government policies that restrict their rights to citizenship. In countries where they have been living for generations, some Roma people still remain stateless. This reality is particularly evident in countries such as Romania, Ukraine, Italy and the Balkans, where thousands of Roma have been left stateless after the break up of Yugoslavia.

The lack of a nationality results in further discrimination: difficulty in obtaining work as well as accessing property and basic services such as health and education. Without documentation and identification, they are also unable to travel and search for better life prospects in different countries.

There is still a very long way to go and much to be done to fully integrate the Roma community into society. The European Union must, therefore, take steps in addressing the lack of rights affecting thousands of Roma people, without which they cannot aspire to a life with the basic conditions expected by any other European citizen.

06.Feb

February 06th, 2018

It's time for sanctions against South Sudan

EDITOR:

Bob Koigi, Nairobi

As mediators and parties to the South Sudan conflict gather for a second round of peace talks, news that the European Union has issued sanctions against three South Sudanese officials bear the greatest responsibility for the escalating conflict. It comes on the heels of a ban of weapon exports to Africa’s youngest nation by the US government, pointing to the mounting impatience by the international community to have the talks concluded and sanity restored.

Stemming from a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar, the four year conflict has caused humanitarian, economic and political crisis of monumental proportions, with tens of thousands of citizens having lost their lives, more than one and a half million people suffering from starvation, and four million people – a third of the country’s population – having fled their homes in one of the most devastating refugee crises in Africa since the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The parties to the conflict maintain their hardline stance and continue to obstruct the peace process while advancing offensive military action. Numerous independent reports indicate that the South Sudan government has invested millions of dollars in buying weapons to gain military advantage, despite the country facing unprecedented drought and an deep economic crisis.

While peace has always remained elusive in the East African nation, the ongoing talks cannot yield anything other than lasting commitment to respect of human rights, lives and the law. Pressure in the negotiating table and outside it must be piled to make the parties of the conflict understand that it can no longer be business as usual. More targeted financial pressures such as asset freezes should now be instituted. The African Union and the United Nations Security Council have been tiptoeing around this humanitarian crisis for too long must now rise to the occasion and impose a global arms embargo. It is the only way the warring factions can feel the full force of the international community. It is the only language they will understand.

It is a truism that the west has the best forms of government. Everyone else is corrupt, decadent, tyrannical. Western liberal democracies, having separated powers from the executive branch of government, secured independent judicial branches, with regularly elected legislative branches; with strong, independent media – these governments are unassailable. They have invested power in institutions that are divorced from temporary governmental powers, and which apply laws fairly to citizens.

So goes the story.

Thinkers from Foucault to Chomsky have criticised this precise institutional power, and the ways in which it works upon people in societies. These critics, very generally speaking, work on a simple premise: that power is not invested in heroic individuals and government bodies, but is distributed throughout social structures and instantiated in the actions of people under those structures. In other words, Presidents and governments only really have symbolic power, yet the 'American Government' and way of life has a hell of a lot of power.

Foucault et al's criticisms have not often been borne out in popular discussion, with executive power being treated as the sole type of power which matters. Trump has often been treated as though he could single-handedly change the country. But of course, he can't – not without institutional change. The fact that he has continuously criticised the US's Justice Department, intelligence agencies, civil service and local authorities only goes to confirm the idea that he has very little actual power in comparison to public institutions.

Theresa May's cabinet in the UK has also been conducting similar exercises, as have fringe politicians such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, who have claimed that Brexit is being slowed down by a corrupt civil service.

The German AfD make it a point to criticise German public institutions, in comparison to their 20th Century equivalents, drawing obvious comparisons; as do Front Nationale in France.

The point is simple, these politicians are desperately trying to erode public trust in institutions in a bid to solidify their own power. The institutions they disparage are those that protect their citizens from corporate and governmental attacks. Looking at the goals they wish to achieve, this is giving the lie to the supremacy of western liberal governments.

Pictured: Jacob Rees Mogg, who claims the British Civil Service is slowing down Brexit

04.Feb

February 04th, 2018

No place for women in an all men’s world

EDITOR:

Shadi Khan Saif, Kabul

A crowd of men, young and old, made up the audience. Some even filming the public lashing of a woman charged with alleged adultery in Afghanistan this week with their modern mobile phones.

There was no defence, no proof presented, and not a single man charged for the same 'injustice'. These ‘flag-bearers’ of justice in Afghanistan’s Takhar province were certain, without trial, that it was the woman who is culpable of the adultery, and therefore she deserves to be dragged to a field and thrashed by them, one after another.

Overshadowed by the ragging violence in the country, the mob justice is not only prevalent in rural corners, but big towns of the war-ravaged country, including the capital Kabul as well.

Rights groups have been appalled by the short viral video circulating on social media, in which the woman in Takhar province’s Chaab district is surrounded by a crowd of men and vehemently beaten with batons in bright day.

The country’s Ghor province saw an even more gruesome mob justice not so long ago, when a woman wearing a similar blue burqa was stoned to death for alleged adultery. And, who can forget the heinous mob-lynching of a Kabul-based girl, Farkhunda, on a bright day light in the heart of the city by a group of men for alleged blasphemy.

The recurrence of such atrocities suggests that the Afghan society is not learning from its mistakes. Instead of evolving, it is gripped by outdated norms preached and guarded by men who refuse to adapt to the currents of equality and modern human rights, but who have no difficulty in adapting smart phones and technology into their lives, only to capture and circulate their oppressively ancient idiocies as testimonies.

Official statistics provided by the Ministry of Women Affairs in Afghanistan suggest that as many as 91 cases of murder, 6 cases of rape and 8 cases of honour killings have been recorded in the country in the past one year alone. And, as long as Afghans continue to treat their women and girls as objects for pleasure and pride, instead of equal human beings on every level, their collective miseries will continue to haunt them.

01.Feb

February 01st, 2018

How to tackle sexual harassment in India?

EDITOR:

Shira Jeczmien, London

“Have we become so insensitive or we have simply accepted this as our fate?” Tweeted Swati Maliwal, the chairwoman of the Delhi Commission for Women, after an 8-months-old girl was raped and hospitalised in India’s capital New Delhi.

Speaking on behalf of the government body that was set up to help protect women, Maliwal’s tweet gives a voice to the voiceless. “What to do? How can Delhi sleep today when 8 month baby has been brutally raped in Capital?” She continued. This deeply distressing case is unfortunately not alone in the disturbing sexual assaults that have taken place in India in recent years. In fact, India does not report a higher number of rapes per capita than many other countries.

Just a few months ago, in September 2017, the Indian government had rejected loud public outcries to outlaw marital rape, claiming that such a move could “destabilise the institution of marriage and put husbands at risk of harassment.” In their statement to the court, government lawyers wrote that “What may appear to be marital rape to an individual wife, may not appear so to others. As to what constitutes marital rape and what would constitute marital non-rape, it needs to be defined precisely before a view on its criminalisation is taken.” It is precisely this rejection of personhood and of individualistic experiences channeled by higher rules in India that is fuelling a sexual abusive norm that has become rooted in the country and has risen in recent years.

There have been several cases of sexual abuse in India that have infiltrated global media. From the 2012 case of a 12-year-old girl gang raped and consequently dying in hospital two weeks later, to a 10-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated by a relative and refused abortion. Those instances should never be erased from our memories. But for every highly reported case there are hundreds of thousands of those that occur in the background; the daily abuses that alone and together put to shame a failed law system that is otherwise meant to protect women with all of its capacity.

While constitutionally Indian women’s rights are equal to men’s in many regards, their treatment within society and access to basic rights such as education, health services and opportunities for empowerment and autonomy remain undeniably lesser. Many organisations and movements are fighting to not only shift the weighted legislations that stop the country from progressing into one that protects its women and cherishes gender equality, but also to educate many women around the country on women’s rights. Sayfty for example is working inside communities to nurture conversation and shift how harassment is perceived. And WASH United is fighting for better and safer sanitation management of menstruation while lifting taboos around it in places where many women believe their periods are a type of disease.

It is from within that India will begin to tackle its sexual harassment problem, and it is only with education and conversation and persistent fighting for equal rights that this shift will come.

31.Jan

January 31st, 2018

Brazilian democracy under threat

EDITOR:

Maria João Morais, Madrid

During 13 years in power, the Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores or PT) transformed Brazil. It distributed wealth, taking millions out of poverty and launched substantial housing initiatives. Whilst, as a result of implementing a new quota system, the number of black students attending university doubled. However, the PT years of governance were not free of mistakes: they made social reforms that depended excessively on profits from oil exports and later on debt, failing to consolidate the reduction in inequality.

It was also under the Workers' Party presidency of Dilma Rousseff that the government granted autonomy to the judiciary powers in order to investigate political corruption, even within PT politicians. What could have been an important step towards the separation of powers in Brazil has, nevertheless, led to untoward consequences, given the lack of impartiality in the Brazilian courts’ recent judicial actions.

Last week, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment on charges of passive corruption and money laundering. The charismatic leader of PT, former metalworker and trade unionist, was accused of favouring a company in exchange for an apartment in the state of São Paulo. The process, however, is far from exemplary because of procedural irregularities alongside a lack of convincing evidence and the trial being brought forward due to the electoral calendar.

The verdict is likely to make it impossible for Lula da Silva to participate in the elections that will take place in October this year, despite the leader of the PT, the most popular in Brazilian history, leading all polls.

Moreover, the episode comes only a few months after the controversial impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, for actions that are now considered legal: a manoeuvre that temporarily made the federal budget deficit look smaller than it would otherwise appear. Although possibly the most honest president in the history of Brazil, Rousseff was dismissed in a parliamentary move that many Brazilians consider a coup. Whilst there have been no corruption charges against her, suspicions hang over her successor, Michel Temer from the opposition, right wing MDB party.

The recent judicial actions, therefore, add to the suspicions of the political nature of the trial, whose sole purpose seems to be preventing Lula da Silva from running for the presidency. Brazilian democracy is thus in grave danger: elections must be won at the ballot box and not in court.

Surrounded by a euphoric crowd and dignitaries across the world, footballer turned politician George Weah recently took oath of office as the 25th president of Liberia. What was striking however, was the palpable enthusiasm from millions of citizens of the West African country who now see in Mr. Weah renewed patriotism and hope for a better tomorrow.

While his predecessor, Nobel laureate and Africa’s first female President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf deserves accolades for transforming the shell of a country that she inherited when she took office, reeling from decades of armed conflict that claimed the lives of over 250,000 Liberians, poverty and diseases, the country of 4.5 million people is still struggling with chronic unemployment, systemic corruption, poverty and a general feeling of disenfranchisement among its citizenry.

More than 54 percent of Liberians live in poverty, as the country ranks 177th out of 188 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index and is graded among the bottom countries in the 2018 World Bank’s ease of doing business index. About 60 percent of Liberian citizens are under 25-years-old, with a majority of them in unemployment. Despite the country's ideal geolocation and inherent good climate and natural resources, it still imports 80 percent of its food.

President Weah’s intray is therefore full: from judicial and electoral reforms, jumpstarting local industries, incentivising investors and donors, slaying the corruption dragon to living true to his philosophy of "transforming the lives of all Liberians."

He will require the work ethic and tact he was well celebrated for in football pitches, only that this time the stakes are higher and millions are looking up to him to steady the ship and make Liberia count in the league of great nations. The true test of his administration will be in the words of his inauguration speech, to build a Liberia of equality, freedom, dignity, and respect for one another.